War Mode World PvP System

Welcome to the War Mode overview, a new system of World PvP added in Battle for Azeroth. In this guide we'll go over the benefits of War Mode, achievements, all PvP talents, bounties, and how to enable War Mode.

Patch 8.1 Changes

The reward bonuses from War Mode can now scale above 10% when a faction was outnumbered over the course of the preceding week, up to a maximum of 30% additional quest rewards and experience.

In War Mode, an outnumbered faction now has access to a weekly quest to slay 25 level 120 players of the opposing faction, rewarding a piece of item level 370 Arathi Warfront gear and 1000 Artifact Power.

War Mode can now be disabled in any rested area. It can still only be enabled in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.

What is War Mode?

War Mode is a new World PvP system in the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch, along with the new Honor system and PvP Talents. Toggle War Mode on in a capital city to gain access to PvP Talents in the outdoor world as well as other bonuses. You will always be in PvP combat mode, getting experience bonuses as a reward for taking a risk.

Blizzard

We hope to have War Mode up very soon for everyone to try out. Until then, I’ll outline a few details:

Honor Talents enabledAs mentioned by Ion and others, Honor Talents are on permanently while War Mode is enabled in the outdoor world. This was the case in Legion as well, but they would only enable when you got into “PvP combat” causing them to enable and disable while playing which ended up feeling a bit “janky.” Players may also find some added benefit with Honor Talents against normal PvE creatures as well, which is designed to be part of a “package of bonuses” to offset the inherit lost efficiency of World PvP.

Gear scalingIn order to create a fair fights and good gameplay, our goal is to limit the extremes in power between players in War Mode that come from gear and level. We want you to have an advantage if your gear is better, but within reason. The experience should be something similar to Unrated Battlegrounds in Legion (but without the stat templates). Keep in mind this is scaling only in PvP combat, so your power against creatures in the world will remain the same as it would be with War Mode disabled.

Conquest and World PvPIn Battle for Azeroth you’ll earn conquest for doing PvP activities similar to how it was gained in the past: Rated Arena and Rated Battlegrounds as well as some light conquest from Unrated Battlegrounds. But what’s new is earning conquest from doing World PvP activities. This gives you an additional source when filling up that “conquest bar” for your weekly conquest item.

Bounty Hunting How do you earn conquest in World PvP? One source is from killing other players, of course. But the more of the opposing faction you slay, the higher chance they will put a bounty on your head. When a bounty is put on you, it will be announced to all opposing players in the zone and you will appear on the main map for a reward. Good luck!

And more...While we have one or two other content features in War Mode we’ll share later on, one of our goals is to keep it minimal. As you point out Ion saying, we want to create a foundation first which we can hopefully build upon (with your feedback!) in the future.

What are the Bonuses of War Mode?

Access to all PvP talents in the outdoor world, regardless of being engaged in PvP combat or not.

+10% experience boost while leveling.

+10% World Quest reward bonuses at max level.

Ability to earn Conquest Points, which count towards a weekly progress bar for special gear rewards.

Completion of PvP achievements.

Dismounting Enemy Players

Want to fight the enemy but they just want to ride past you on their mount? By activating War Mode, you can now use a Net-o-Matic 5000 to dismount the enemy player and hopefully start a battle!

Faction Imbalance Buff

For players of the under-represented faction in Patch 8.1, the War Mode Enlisted buff is increased from 10% on live to 30% in 8.1. This increases Experience gained while leveling, along with War Resources, Artifact Power, and Gold from World Quests. Keeping War Mode enabled while completing lucrative World Quests like Faction Assaults is very tempting.

What are PvP Talents?

PvP talents are very similar to Legion Honor talents, just with a different interface. You have four talents to pick, one being your PvP Trinket, a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Adaptation, and Relentless and the other three being any choice between your remaining PvP talents from the Legion Honor talents.

The major differences from Legion are that these talents are active in all Outdoor content, are accessed from the main Talent tab instead of a separate Honor Talent Tab, and you pick four down from six. You also do not need to grind out Prestige in order to unlock PvP talents.

Below you can see some screenshots from the in-game UI.

Get PvP Talent recommendations for all popular specializations in our guides:

How do I Enable PvP Talents?

You can only enable PvP Talents in Stormwind for the Alliance or Orgimmar for the Horde. To select your PvP Talents, open up your Talent Panel, hit the carrot at the top right for "PvP Talents," and select the talents you prefer.

What are the Air Drops?

Blizzard

From time to time, a flying machine will make its way across the sky. The rumble of its engine is a clear indicator that something is afoot. You’ll want to keep an eagle eye on the sky and watch for a War Supply Crate to drop somewhere in the zone. Similar to the chest in Gurubashi Arena, players can fight over the crate and claim it for their faction. Once a faction has gained control of the crate, anyone of that faction who is within the area will have a short period to open it and collect a piece of personal loot.

In addition to Azerite and Conquest, these War Supply Crates can also contain Aspirant gear--a unique tint of Warfront/Gladiator armor. Check out the following armor styles:

Comments

Comment by vlaka

What exactly is the point though? Players choose PVP or PVE servers if they want world pvp...and even those on PVE servers can toggle pvp on or off. Not seeing why this is a thing

Comment by ElizLewis773

15% bonus to exp? Really? Because your pvp servers are all doing so well(sarcasm). When will you get that prioritizing pvp is a BAD idea? Progressives will be boycotting your office with signs accusing you of corrupting the youth with violence. I'm not a progressive btw so it won't be me but constantly pushing pvp is just not a good idea. There is a niche for it there always has been but not all of us are into esports. Not to mention in this day and age Us vs Them has gotten to insane levels. I miss the comradery of the old game and helpful people and you can't find it on either side anymore. I get enough real world violence, mayhem and just plain ugliness everyday on tradechat, FB and Twitter. I deliberately did not go for the falcosaur mounts because of the pvp aspect which I've done in the past but I'm just plain tired of it now.

Comment by LiriusMagi

At least make it able to toggle from a rested area, like Dalaran or the class halls/inns. Having to go all the way to SW just because I want to turn it on/off? A bit of a pain. Also, I am phased from people not in war mode. So I can't quest or something with non-war mode friends or help each other with anything PVE unless I go, again, all the way to SW just to turn it off.

Comment by glycereth

I've no problems with warmode, I'll have it on 100% outdoors, the only problem is juggling between pvp and pve, since you tailored your talents for warmode, when a dungeon queue pops, you lose your pvp talents that compliment the rest, but now you feel like your hands are tied without them in a dungeon and you need to use 2 tomes for every dungeon to have fun.

Sure you can have 2 specs 1 for pve and 1 for pvp and just switch specs outdoors without burning 2 tomes, but it's just a bit punishing for people who love a particular spec.

I guess nothing is perfect and this is the best we can have.

Comment by Skylair

Does completing world pvp quests without war mode on give honor? (currently testing)

Edit: Yes. Yes you do.

Comment by Cambrius13

So, we can only turn War Mode off in Stormwind, but we're already seeing groups camping the teleports in Argus. A pile of Hordies gank you, but you can't resurrect without getting ganked again, and you can't even hearth to Stormwind to turn it off.

A bit frustrating. It seems that the old camp-and-grief tactic is going to be a thing again.

Comment by Ossz

Comment by Zanokk

2 boosts should not be there:

+10% experience boost while leveling.

+10% World Quest reward bonuses at max level.

It's a carrot on the stick to goad people into pvp. So if you want to get to a goal of raiding, leveling, etc.. as quick as possible, you're forced to pvp. People don't like being forced to do things. Sure it's at least more interactive to say the mission tables. I've played on pvp and pve servers. My uninterrupted play time has greatly diminished and thus only goal is to level to cap and do normal raids or LFR (it's a face roll but there doesn't tend to be enough time for me to look for a group, considering there's no time i can stick to for a scheduled raid... I know.. it's my problem, why change the game for me.

Its' my opinion that pvp is lazy, from the development side of things. Not saying it's easy to implement or anything like that. I'm saying it's easier than being creative (more quests, more content).. and to force it upon people that liked the equation WoW followed since creation with boosts seems entirely unfair. Sure if I don't like it I wont do it, right... that'll work (never works). Blizzard already has pvp games. Stop pushing it on WoW as a whole.

I'd like to see those 2 bonuses vanish OR keep them in... as a 3-5hr reward for getting a bounty on your head.. that way you can go back to <main city> and turn it off, if you want. It should be a reward, not a feature for adding more people into the pvp pool. Lets see the numbers pvp'ing with those 2 boosts off, if numbers don't change drastically after 2 weeks.. (ratios not numbers) add it back in.

Comment by Qbanchriss91

Comment by Brokenkneez

For anyone else trying to get Exalted with Legion Allied races, after a quick test, it looks like Warmode does not increase rep rewards/gains from Legion World Quests.

Comment by Novikmet

Is warmode xp boost aplicable to the xp you get in low lvl dungeons. For expample, say im leveling a new character and i'd like to do dungeons to make the experience go faster, will the xp boost from warmode being turned on affect those dungeons?

Comment by Stompinwin

As Horde I am turning off war mode until we get the same rewards as alliance....

Comment by Jaredius

To Toggle/Enable "War Mode" go in to Specialization & Talents, click PvP Talents arrow in the upper right, then click on War Mode at the lower right. You will hear a hit and "For the Alliance".

Comment by Ohpwnies

You have to be level 20 to turn on warmode. I could not find this anywhere!

Comment by Coldaria

Do you know if the titles and mounts are account wide (if you get Horde Slayer, will it appear as Alliance Slayer on an Alliance toon) character bound or faction bound?

Comment by Facerockker

A little late, but I wanted to throw this out there nonetheless -- War Mode DOES increase XP gained from gathering herbs/ore. I have to imagine it affects XP gained from chests as well.

Comment by Facerockker

A little late, but I wanted to throw this out there nonetheless -- War Mode DOES increase XP gained from gathering herbs/ore. I have to imagine it affects XP gained from chests as well.

Comment by Mahar

Tried turning on War mode whilst in Stormwind to do fishing & cooking dailies. The enlisted buff is saying +25% but I get no boost. Wondered whether it was capping out because of heirloom bonuses but removing this gear reduced xp by 50%. Still no bonus from enlisted :(.

Can see no comments to say it does not apply to these types of quest.

Comment by Mahar

Not sure about this balancing thing. One of my alts (lvl 52) got bounced by two players - one lvl 41 and one unknown high lvl. I died instantly! The lvl 41 then flew off on the back of the high lvl. Sneaky stuff!

Comment by erpbridge

Note: If you're on the quest "The Price of Victory", following Saurfang's Mak'gora challenge, you are not able to turn off War Mode as Orgrimmar is in an instanced non-rested area.